I really did not want my first post on this forum to go this way but oh well.
I’ve been reading this post and I feel I have to respond. I grew up next to the Hudson and still live only a stone throw away. In the 50s you couldn’t swim in the water without getting sick as my uncle did when he was younger. In the 80s I was told it was illegal to swim there as it was too dirty. Back in the day the villages and cities dumped their raw sewage into the river with the ideal “Dissolution is the Solution” and as in combined sewers that is still the idea for some towns and cities such as Newburgh. I hate that idea but I also know to fix it costs more money than those villages, cities or towns have.
I have seen people bad mouth the developers, the municipalities and anyone and everyone they can here about what they do and being corrupt and not caring etc. I will agree that there are corrupt politicians, there are dishonest companies and there are greedy people, always have been and always will be. But don’t paint everyone with the same brush, they are in the minority. People say they use old technology and yes some do use sand filters, then chlorinate and then de-chlorinate before discharging, some use RBCs some use activated sludge digesters there are many options out there and new ones are coming online all the time. Let me ask you this though, are you going to let your taxes go up to pay a couple of million for new technology when your existing sewer treatment plant is meeting permit? Heres another one, which will get money faster, $2,000,000 for a park or $2,000,000 for sewer upgrades? People don’t care about their sewer as long as it goes down the drain and most don’t know if its to a sewer treatment plant or a septic in their own yard.
I just hate seeing everyone being labeled the bad guy. I work with companies and municipalities and even individuals under consent order from the NYDEC for their sewer treatment plants and variance other issues. I know whats involved and it almost always comes down to money. Let me tell you the infrastructure of the United States is crap. When where the sewer mains installed in your home town, how about the water mains? When was that, 40 years ago, 50, 100? What do you think is the life expectancy on those pipes? Heck there are some towns on the Hudson who still have wooden water mains. Yea you read that right water mains made out of wood. How old do you think those are?
People don’t like their taxes going up for things they can’t see. They can’t see underground pipes, they don’t see the sewer treatment plant. If its working then why does it need money? No one will raise taxes for those things unless they have no choice in the matter. The “it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality is alive and strong in the US. The problem is many things are already broken and are limping by and there is no money to fix them.
Sorry for the rant and wall of text, I just had to say it. By the way I really do like this site and am learning a lot eventually I even hope to at least learn what all those acronyms you guys with knowledge use.